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When we started our 7th Sea game, one of the players created an Inish boxer. His main story goal? Become a fighter renowned throughout Théah and to box the O’Bannon! The whole vibe of the character always reminded me of the South Park Russel Crowe spoof: Makin’ movies, singin’ songs, and FIGHTIN’ ROUND THE WORLD!

Unfortunately, life interviened and after only a few game sessions, this player had to take a indefinite sabbatical from the game. Before he left, to prepare for a string of title boughts in various ports-o-call, I created a series of tables to randomly generate boxing opponents of various skill. I think I finished them the day before he resigned the game.

Well I guess this work won’t be seeing much play in my game now, so I’m posting it here!

Random Boxer Tables

d10

In the Other Corner…

1

The Kid (Green Fighter)

2

The Ham/Palooka

3

The Up and Comer

4

The Seasoned Fighter

5

The (Current) Champ

6

The Has-Been

7

The Grizzled Veteran

8

The Exotic Foreigner

9

The Prodigal Son

0

The Augmented Fighter

d10

Style

1

Pressure Fighter

2

Swarmer

3

In-Fighter

4

Slugger

5

Boxer-Puncher

6

Switch Hitter

7

Out-Boxer

8

Unorthodox/Unconventional Form

9-0

Roll Twice; ignore this
result again.

d10

Descriptor and Trait

1-2

The Mountain (Brawn)

3-4

Quick and Nimble (Finesse)

5-6

Head in the Game (Wits)

7-8

Tenacious and Unshakable (Resolve)

9-0

The Showboat (Panache)

d10

Quirk

1

Best Defense

2

Southpaw

3

Achilles Heel

4

Drunk

5

Cocky

6

Grudge

7

Distracted

8

Dirty Fighter

9

Secret Enchantment

0

All Heart

d10

The Match

1

Organized Crime is involved.

2

Your opponent throws the Match

3

Your opponent is the crowd Favorite

4

Rough Crowd

5

Your opponent is Altruistic (Man of the People); has vowed to donate all winnings to a popular cause

6

Crooked Promoter

7

Your opponent dies at the End

8

Fat Purse (+1 wealth point to the winner)

9

A Fate Witch is secretly manipulating the fight

0

Showcase Match; your opponent is completely mismatched

Boxing Moves/Terms

Jab: Jab is a short straight punch

Cross: Cross is a straight punch delivered from the side

Uppercut: Uppercut is an upward punch that comes from underneath the opponent’s guard

Hook: Hook is a swinging blow with the elbow bent

Body Blow: Body blow is a punch to the body

Block: Blocking is the use of the shoulders, arms, or hands to prevent an opponent’s punch from landing cleanly

Bob and Weave: To bob and weave is to make quick bodily movements up and down and from side to side in order to dodge punches. In boxing bobbing moves the head laterally and beneath an incoming punch. As the opponent’s punch arrives, the fighter bends the legs quickly and simultaneously shifts the body either slightly right or left. Fighters generally begin the bob and weave to the left, as most opponents strike with their left hand, or jab hand first.

Stance: Stance is the position adopted by a boxer in readiness to land or receive punches

Clinch: To clinch is to hold one’s opponent in such a way that he cannot throw punches

Corkscrew: Corkscrew is a punch thrown with the elbow out and a twisting motion of the wrist

Counter: Counter is an attack made immediately after an opponent throws a punch

Feint: To feint means to fake a punch with the intention of disorientating one’s opponent

Guard: Guard is a defensive stance, with the gloves raised to protect the face

Haymaker: Haymaker is colloquial term for a wild swinging punch

Hold: Hold is a grip of the opponent that prevents him from throwing punches

Infighting: Infighting is engaging at very close quarters, so that it is impossible to throw full-length punches

Reach: Reach is the distance between the fingertips of the outstretched arms of a boxer; (cricket) the extent to which a batsman can play forward without moving his back foot

I say it wasn’t much of a surprise because Hannah Shaffer (JWP marketing director) had asked for questions for the interview weeks ago. The surprise was that the interview was far more about style and less about form, so most of the mechanical questions never made it into the interview. A wasted opportunity that, but I’m not going to complain since two of my questions made it into the interview. And the answers were interesting. I’m not going to give it all away here, but I would encourage other 7th Sea GMs (and players!) to give the interview a listen. There is some good stuff in there that really needs to be distilled into the GM section of 7th Sea: Khitai or the inevitable 7th Sea revised edition.

If you are not a fan of the new edition, if the revised mechanics and setting make your teeth itch, if the mere mention of John Wick triggers you, pass this one by. There is nothing in here that’s going to change your mind on any one of these points. If you love the setting, but the mechanics read like Greek (sorry, Numenari) to you, there aren’t any revelations to be had. He does discuss creating Consequences and Opportunities for a scene, but I’m not sure how helpful the answer really is as the context feels…weird.

In fact, if I have a complaint about the interview, its the perspective offered. I get the impression that John Wick’s experience running 7th Sea is that of a series a highly episodic sessions and one-shot, not as a long-running serial that us old timers aspire to run. Now part of that is probably the nature of the biz: when most of your play comes from demos and con-hopping, that’s what your experience is going to be. Or if you are used to switching RPGs often or troupe-style GM play. But for those of who dig in for long haul campaigns, there is something of a disconnect in the advice given. (I hold all RPG developers to the unrealistic expectation that they, like Gary Gygax, run a weekly open table game for migrating groups of players for years to test out ideas and new rules – which the man did for both D&D and Lejendary Adventure. So keep that in perspective. And yes, I know almost none of them actually do that.)

My dream a big 7th Sea GM roundtable where everyone gets deep in the weeds Angry GM style on how to make the game sing like a siren is still unfulfilled. So if you’re listening JWP, put that on your list for 2018.

Back in 2001 or 2002, I honestly can’t remember which, we were in the thick of our 7th Sea (1st edition) campaign. It was October and I proposed a Halloween themed “one-shot” for the group. Unfortunately, this “one-shot” took all of about 4 or 5 sessions to actually complete, something I’ve become a bit notorious for since then.

This year, over on the Facebook Explorer’s of Théah group, I proposed everyone submit a scenario for Halloween as a community project. While this wasn’t the first of my old adventures that came to mind — that one involved a murderous redcap stalking the students of a Castillain university (“Remember the tooth!”) — I settled on this one because of the 2015 film, the Witch.

After having seen that movie, I think I would run this one completely differently than I did before. In fact, I think this would have made a great adventure for Witch Hunter: the Invisible World, All for One: Regime Diabolique, or the Savage World of Solomon Kane with only a bit of tweaking.

So if you and your group are getting together to roll some dice for Halloween fun, I offer this short adventure scenario for your consideration: Whisper on a Black Wind. See if you can make it the horrific one night affair it was intended to be.

Addendum

A quick shout out and thank you to Dyson Logos for his amazing work and making some of it available to use. If anyone wants a copy of the unaltered version of the map used in the adventure, you can find it here.

These three books were recently discovered on the shelves of Tomlin and Sons Booksellers in La Bucca (Sunrise Haven). The number of available copies varies, but they may well appear in other collections on the occult, especially in Western Théah.

Power in the Blood: A Woman’s Journey
Written by Blanche Levellé, born to a family of strong Porte sorcerers but found herself lacking any ability. She devoted most of her life to the search for a means to activate her latent potential, mostly through Alquimia.Secret: While she never quite gets there, a lot of Levellé’s conclusions and research gets dangerously close to Blood Sorcery (Secret Societies: The Invisible College, 1st edition).Additional Details: The first edition of this book was published in 1649 in Frieburg. It has become scare after the War of the Cross and is prized by collectors in Montaigne. This book has been deemed heresy by the Inquisition.

Bloody Legecy: A Codex of Sorcerous Wounds
A pamphlet on Blessures, written by an esteemed Vaticine Witch Hunter, Brother Sergio. The text catalogs know Blessure sites in Théah, both Montaigne and elsewhere, and includes detailed descriptions and long-term observations. Despite its age, the pamphlet is still required reading among dedicated agents of the Inquisition and is held in high esteem as a scholarly text.Secret: This was one of the texts that revealed the origins of the Inquisition and its original purpose to Inquisitor Octavio Mzabi. He has been working on an updated edition, seeded with ciphers for Inquisition Aquila members.

Montanus
A translation of a lost late-Imperial document by Sister Hypathia of the Gnostic Order. It chronicles the Montanus family, who rose to power in the Numaneri senate and whose bloodline would eventually come to dominate Western Théah and the nation of Montaigne. It devotes a considerable amount of detail to Porté sorcery and suggests it was born of a pact between the Montanus family and diabolical otherworldly beings. Despite its pedigree, the text is considered antiquated and has largely been debunked by (mostly Montaignious) scholars.Secret: Despite its reputed inaccuracies, the text does describe a few lost powers of Porté that could be rediscovered through study and practice.

In 7th Sea, a dievas is an ethereal, fey or demonic-like being straight out of Lithuanian folklore. Obscenely powerful, the only way they can make mischief in the world is through the complicit actions of a petitioner: a losejas. They is the classic crossroads demon, happy to grant you your fondest desire, but always seeking to twist it to serve their own mercurial ends.

Dievai can come in many shapes and forms. No doubt they might come completely imagined by a player or GM. But sometimes its fun to add an unexpected twist to the mix. For that purpose, I offer you a collection of random tables to help generate a dievas for a storyline. Roll on as many as you like. The first group determine how the dievas usually appears to its losejas. The second, its usual personality in such meetings. The third set of tables determine what sort of conditions the dievas appears under, and what phenomena (if any) herald its arrival. Together, they should give you plenty of room to build upon.

So after some unfortunate shuffling of the deck chairs in our 7th Sea game, we brought in two new players. One of them, a very serious and historically minded type comes to me and says, “I want to play this? I don’t see it as a background though.” “No problem,” I say. “Let’s see what we can do.”

The background in question was the Dragoman, an envoy and diplomat in the Ottoman Court. With the preview of the Crescent Empire book beginning to circulate through the kickstarter channels, I figure this is a timely addition. Especially since that background isn’t included. Probably because of the focus on language, one of many things this edition of 7th Sea shuffles into the background.

Actually, creating a new background wasn’t difficult at all. We took two comparable backgrounds, the Courtier and the Consigliere (Vodacce), and smashed them together. Then there was some jockeying about what Advantages (besides Linguist) to include. In the end, we settled on 6 points of Advantages as there is precedence for this. In the end, the hardest part was coming up with a Quirk! So I turned to the Facebook fan group for that. In the end, I think it turned out pretty well, and makes a great background for a Crescent agent adventuring in Théah.

Dragonman

Crescent Empire Background

You are a bridge between cultures; an interpreter, mediator, diplomat, and guide in foreign matters in the court of the Empress.

Quirk: Earn a Hero Point when you solve a problem using knowledge from a culture other than your own.

Last week, I finished Sebastien De Castell’s novel, Saint’s Blood, the third book of the Greatcoats. Like the previous two, it was a fun (well, okay, mostly fun) rollicking adventure yarn full of wit, humor, and swashbuckling derring do. As much as I enjoyed the previous two installments, I’ll give Saint’s Blood higher marks in that it keeps the main cast together. Both Traitor’s Blade and Knight’s Shadow have bogged down when Falcio val Mond (our noble protagonist) has gone off on his own. Really – for me anyway – it is the banter and interrelationships between Falcio, Kest, and Brasti that really make these books sing. Take one of them out of the picture and the landscape darkens noticeably.

As fun as it was, there were a couple of issues for me. Castell’s language has always been colorful, but in this installment things just seemed more…explicit. It just felt a bit out of character. And the repeated use of “arsehole” just felt a bit silly. Likewise, rather than his usual pragmatism, Falcio seems far more pessimistic and defeatist in this adventure. That might make sense given the natural of the adversary (sorry, no spoilers), but again it feels out of character and inorganic, as though Castell decided he needed to recast Falcio’s personality to fit the story rather than the other way around. But while these detract slightly from the whole, it doesn’t diminish the story, the characters, or the finale. And what a finale! I cheered the finale of Knight’s Shadow – if you’ve read it, you know exactly the part I’m talking about – and Saint’s Blood closed with at least as much joy in this reader’s heart.

The most bittersweet part of finishing Saint’s Blood is in knowing that the fourth installment, Tyrant’s Throne, is the final book of the Greatcoats. It feels funny to say that – I am not a fan of endless series or of authors who ride one series into the dirt in their careers. Yes, that applies to Terry Prachett and Jim Butcher, as much as I love their work, as it does Terry Goodkind, Terry Brooks, and Robert Jordan (the less said about those the better). And yes, I know Butcher is working on a fantasy series too but c’mon. 24 Dresden novels? Really?! When he gets to #22, someone needs to send ole Jim a copy of Stephen King’s Misery just for laughs.

But yes, it is bittersweet to know the Greatcoats is coming to an end. Not only because I’ll miss the adventures of Falcio, Kest, and Brasti (and Ethalia, Valiana, and Dariana), but because this is the first series of books that I’ve had this much fun reading in a long time. The swashbuckling adventure genre isn’t awash with options these days. So while I wait for the Dallas Public Library to get their hands on Tyrant’s Throne, I’m going to be looking for a new voice that brings me the same thrill. Wish me luck.

A Parting Gift

An excerpt from the novel. Don’t worry, it won’t spoil anything. Go ahead and read it:

Udriel is what we call in the business a sanguinist: a fencer whose primary strategy is to go for little cuts—wounds that sting and bleed and distract you, until you start to slow down without even realizing it. Sanguinists take their time, pulling you apart bit by bit, until they can end the fight with a single, brilliant flourish—they usually go for an artery so that you end up bleeding out spectacularly all over the floor. It can create quite a stunning tableau for the audience.

I hate sanguinists.

The moment I read this passage, I said to myself, “dammit, 7th Sea needs sanguinists!”

Throughout the book, Falcio describes a number of duelist archetypes. I’ve taken the liberty of compiling all of them into a single file so you can add them to your swashbuckling game of choice. Flashing Blades, Honor+Intrigue, Witch Hunter, All For One, Savage World of Solomon Kane, it doesn’t matter. All of these games need sanguinists. And now they can.